


Daughters of the Emperor, Fight by my Side

by rerollMike (ancarett)



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-28
Updated: 2012-09-28
Packaged: 2017-11-15 05:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancarett/pseuds/rerollMike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Battle sister Constanzia and her cohorts in the Order of Our Martyred Lady seek to liberate an Imperial World from the grip of the Death Guard traitors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daughters of the Emperor, Fight by my Side

“By the bolter, we shall purify!” Sister Superior Constanzia repeated the first command of the tri-part litany of hatred.  
  
Constanzia and her battle-sisters had come to Carchemish III to liberate its capital city from the grip of the Death Guard traitor marines. For almost a month the plague ships of the Death Guard had bombarded the hive-world whilst Chaos-worshipping cultists rose in revolt against the planetary government.  
  
“By the flamer, we shall cleanse!”  
  
On the twenty-eighth day of the siege, the traitor marines, led by the thrice-damned Typhus himself, had teleported into the capital city while pestilence spread like wildfire across the largest continent of Carchemish III.  
  
“By the blade, we shall sanctify!”  
  
Fortunately, this incursion by the forces of Chaos had not gone unanticipated. An imperial fleet, led by five companies of the Blood Angels space marines and Lord Commander Dante himself had arrived within weeks to purge from the planet the taint of Nurgle.  
  
“Daughters of the Emperor, march!” Sister Constanzia and her squad boarded the drop pod. One of hundreds which sat in the launch bays of the Emperor’s cruiser, _Heart of Gold_.  
  
The arrival of the Blood Angels had been more terrible than that of the Death Guard. The genetically enhanced soldiers of the Adeptus Astartes had carved a swath through Carchemish III. Traitor marines, cultists, plague victims, innocent civilians, none were spared. In the end, Governor Tarquin had begged Dante to end the assault.  
  
“Angels of death indeed. What do those monstrous abhumans care for the lives of ordinary men and women?” Constanzia thought aloud.  
  
Dante was content to pursue the fleeing Death Guard ships as they attempted to gain enough distance from Carchemish III’s star in order to make the jump into warp space.  
  
“Daughters of the Emperor, lock in!” Constanzia braced herself as the shoulder and leg restraints, which would hold her secure during the combat drop, clamped into place.  
  
All that was left of the Chaos incursion, practically all that was left of Carchemish III, was the capital, Assurbanipal. It was a hive city, with a rough radius of almost 200 miles, its towers rose seven miles above the planet’s surface and its undercity descended five miles below. Here the traitors, protected by the city’s defense force field, had determined to make their final stand.  
  
“Drop pod launch to commence in 10 minutes”, announced a naval rating’s voice over the launch bay loud speakers.  
  
Constanzia felt the _Heart of Gold_ shudder as its immense lance batteries fired on Assurbanipal. Other vessels of the Imperial fleet were, no doubt, doing the same. The city’s weakened force field could not long resist the assault of these immense turbo-lasers. Once the force field was breached, the drop pods would be fired into the heart of the capital.  
  
“For the Emperor and Saint Katherine!” shouted Constanzia and her sisters as the drop pod’s hatches were closed and sealed. She did a quick visual inspection of her squad to ensure that they were all locked in properly. Outside, Adeptus Mechanicus technicians were reciting the catechism of launching whilst they anointed the pod’s hull with blessed unguents and oils produced in the holy manufactoriums of Mars itself.  
  
The traitors had no response to the bombardment, but it had to end. Governor Tarquin wanted his capital preserved. The sisters of the Order of Our Martyred Lady were tasked with being the vanguard of the force that would retake Assurbanipal…without the “help” of the Blood Angels. The battle sisters would form a bridgehead around the Cathedral of Saint Katherine, named after their patroness and founder. They would be followed by dozens of regiments of the Imperial Guard who would then fan out and rescue the city. Sister Constanzia and her squad had been honoured with the mission of retrieving a holy relic of the Saint herself: a lock of her hair preserved in a crypt below cathedral floor.  
  
“Sisters, prepare for launch!” Again the _Heart of Gold_ shuddered as, in sequence, the drop pods were fired out of their launch tubes.  
  
Constanzia’s whole body was thrown against her restraints as the drop pod was expelled from the cruiser. She was thrashed again as the pod hit the atmosphere and its deceleration rockets burst into life.  
  
“The Emperor is my guide, and I shall follow. He leads mankind ever to victory over its foes. He exalts the brave. He honours the strong. He protects the weak. I shall walk beside the Emperor in battle against His enemies, in this life and the next.” Constanzia repeated her favorite catechism over and over until her drop pod crashed through the roof of the Cathedral of Saint Katherine.  
  
Immediately, explosive bolts blew open the pod’s hatches. Simultaneously, the shoulder and leg restraints holding the sisters released. While this occurred, the pod’s machine spirit fired a volley of grenades at anything moving outside of it. Light burst in all around the sisters of battle.  
  
“Daughters of the Emperor, fight by my side!” Constanzia shouted as she charged out of the drop pod.  
  
Constanzia thumbed the switch on her chain sword, bringing it to whirling, screaming life. She scanned the area around her squad’s landing zone, searching for the enemy. A man with his forehead crudely tattooed with an eight-pointed star emerged from the dust and debris, firing a las-rifle from the hip and yelling at the top of his lungs. Constanzia calmly drew her bolt pistol and fired at his face.  
  
“Die, Chaos-filth!” she cried as the .50 caliber round reduced the cultist’s head to a red mist.  
  
Other cultists went down as quickly and the survivors fled when Sister Minerva unleashed her flamer. The traitorous men and women withdrew out the main entrance, entreating the dark gods to come to their aid. Constanzia ordered her squad into a firing line and covered this direction while other units of the Order of Our Martyred Lady fanned out to clear the rest of the building. The traitors would surely return in force…  
  
“Death to the false Emperor!” bellowed a Death Guard traitor marine as he led the cultists back into the Cathedral.  
  
He was eight feet tall, clad head to toe in nigh-invulnerable terminator armour and surrounded by a miasma of bloated flies. He strode towards the nearest squad of battle sisters, contemptuous of their bolter fire as he levelled his combi-bolter at them and fired. Explosive rounds stitched across the torso of Sister Marguerite and, though they could not pierce the breastplate itself, one of the bullets found the elbow joint in her armour. Marguerite’s arm was torn in two and she fell, cursing the traitor.  
  
“For Saint Katherine!” Sister Constanzia raised her bolt pistol and fired three rounds at the plague marine. The shells ricocheted off his thick, ceramite armour but drew his attention fully towards her.  
  
“A gift for you, nursemaid to a desiccated corpse, from Father Nurgle,” the Death Guard waved his hand and the flies which had surrounded him swarmed over Constanzia, blocking her vision and crawling into her nose and mouth. She reeled backwards, unable to fight or drive the flies off of her.  
  
“Come to Chaos. Join us or die”, chanted the chaos cultists, emboldened by the presence of the traitor marine. They swept forward, surrounding Constanzia and hacking at her with a variety of clumsily handled blades.  
  
“Then we shall be martyrs!” cried Sister Minerva unleashing her flamer. Blazing prometheium jetted through the air, clinging to the traitor marine, cultists and flies. The latter two groups were quickly reduced to ash, but the plague terminator seemed unhindered.  
  
“Join your corpse-emperor,” the traitor jeered as he fired his combi-bolter at Minerva. This time the arcane weapon did not fire a bullet but rather a bolt of superheated energy. It struck Minerva full on in the chest and, for a moment, she flared brighter than the sun, then blinked out of existence. More cultists now entered the cathedral as the terminator-armoured traitor pressed his advantage.  
  
“For the Emperor!” cried Constanzia as, relieved of the swarm of flies, she threw herself upon plague marine.  
  
“Daughters of the Emperor, fight by my side!” she called, rallying her wavering battle sisters. They charged into the cultists who had now swarmed by their hundreds into the cathedral. The sisters were battle hardened, well armed and skilled hand-to-hand combatants, but they were now badly outnumbered. In this contest of skill versus mass, could they prevail?  
  
Constanzia had no time to ponder the question. The traitor marine had drawn his plague sword, a rusted, festering weapon that reeked with the baleful magics of the dark gods. She fired her bolt pistol point blank at his helmet. Again, the shell had no effect on the abhuman giant. He swept at her with his sword displaying a terrible speed and strength, but Constanzia avoided the blow and struck with her chainsword at the offered arm.  
  
The diamond-edged teeth of the chainsword screeched as they struck the thick ceramite of the Death Guard’s armour. Sparks flew into the air, but the traitor’s vambrace was scarcely scratched. He swept back with his sword, inhumanly fast, crushing Constanzia’s hand and forcing her to drop her blade. Explosions rent the cathedral’s ceiling and rubble cascaded down all around them, crushing cultists and battle sisters alike.  
  
The traitor grasped Constanzia by her gorget, lifting her effortlessly off the ground. She emptied her bolt pistol’s magazine into his chest, to no avail.  
  
“Pathetic, mewling girl, do you not see that death comes for you all? Father Nurgle shall feast on your rotting corpses.” growled the traitor marine as he slowly closed his massive fist around her head.  
  
“I think not,” said Constanzia.  
  
The Death Guard stiffened as his armour was rent asunder by a weapon of awesome power. His body burst like the bloated cadaver that it was and he crumpled, dead, to the floor.  
  
“For the Emperor, Saint Katherine and the Sisterhood!” shouted Prioress Sarmatia as she tore her force halberd from the plague marine’s body, the Eldar-forged weapon pulsing with arcane energy. The destruction of the cathedral had heralded the arrival of a second wave of battle sisters.  
  
“Sister, you are injured. See to your wound and then join us in cleansing this world,” ordered Sarmatia as she inspected Constanzia’s ruined hand. A wound from a plague sword would prove fatal unless given prompt attention. The sister superior would be lucky if she only lost her hand.  
  
Constanzia surveyed the scene around her: the cathedral was destroyed, but the traitors were routed. The remnants of her squad were forming up around Prioress Sarmatia, awaiting her command. Constanzia made her way towards a group of Sisters Hospitallar as Sarmatia flourished her xenos-weapon and cried, “Battle Sisters, follow me! We shall march to Glorious Victory!”


End file.
